Tag Archives: wealth

I stumbled across a children’s health clinic being held at a local hardware store, today.

The horror of our health care industry smacked me right in the face. What have we done with our once great nation?

I saw an endless line of children without health insurance. Some of the children were so sick someone called the ambulance. Even a fire truck showed up. Some of the children were too sick to even stand on their own.

How could we let this nation come to this? How can we be so silent while the Republicans turn this great country into the Libertarian Paradise of Somalia? Children there are dying without health care, too.

Health care is a right, it’s not a privileged offered to only the wealthy. Obamacare is a small, tiny step in the right direction and even that is being opposed by the Republicans. The Republican party wants the sick and the poor to hurry up and just die.

This isn’t the America I read about in school. This is a bizarre nightmare brought on by too much Libertarian Voodoo economics.

This country is falling apart around our ankles and we need to get mad as Hell and get out in the streets and demand progress.

Almost all of America agrees with the policies of the Progressive Left. This includes agreeing with the majority of the following issues:

The rich have gotten too rich

The rich have too much influence over our political system

Our political system needs to be more representative of the needs of the middle class

We need to fix the economy so we can bring back the middle class in this country

We need to take care of the least among us, including extended unemployment benefits, food stamps, food for poor children

We need to fix our broken health care system

We need to get off fossil fuels and need to start developing energy systems for the 21st century

We need to do something about global warming and the freaky once-in-a-century storms we’re seeing every day, now

In fact, not only does the vast majority of America believe these things, the vast majority of REPUBLICANS believe these things.

So, if that’s true, then why does anyone still vote republican? The answer is obvious and this answer explains why America is at a greater risk than ever of being destroyed by the wealthy, at the hands of the the Republican voters who believe all these things. This answer should scare the dickens out of you.

The Republican party and the top 1% of our wealthy elite have found a way to get the average Republican to vote against America. This sounds like hyperbole, but bear with me. The vast majority of Republican voters are single issue voters. In other words, they are willing to see all the other issues, mentioned above, go to Hell as long they get their one hot item issue. Even if they don’t get the one issue, they’ll vote for a party that lies to them and says they’re going to provide it.

And, what are these single issues that the Republican voter will vote for even if it means the destruction of America? What are the things that are so important that they’re more important than our economy or more important than everything else our country stands for? You’ve probably guessed. But here is a short list of things that some fanatics will vote for, even if it means voting against everything else that matters to them.

Gun rights

Abortion restrictions

Birth control restrictions

Putting women in their place at the back of the bus

Putting minorities at the back of the bus

Putting gays in their place

Protecting the great white class in America

Religious control of our country

Getting rid of the black man in the white house

Undoing equal rights

Benghazi

Anything Fox News says

The wealthy have found out how to control these ignorant fanatics to vote against everything that matters to them, just so long as they foolishly believe their one-ticket item will finally be addressed.

And now that the Republicans in the Supreme Court have opened the flood gates and allowed the wealthy and transnational corporations control of our political process, we are seeing billions of dollars spent to get those fanatics mobilized.

Come election day, these fanatics will be wetting their pants from all the scary advertising and will be the first ones in line to vote.

All the while, the rest of America will watch in horror at the spectacle that we see every election year and most will neglect to even get to the voting booths.

Big money will be controlling the fanatics more than ever this election year. If the rest of us quietly watch from the sidelines, we can kiss this country goodbye. Not goodbye in the future or goodbye next year or in a few years. If we don’t fix this right now, we will not get another chance.

Talk to your friends. Talk to your neighbors. Try to wake up your single-issue voters in your family to the fact that they’re being manipulated to vote against their own best interests and the best interest of their country.

More than anything, get everyone you know to register and get out and vote.

The oil industry is pouring millions of dollars into marketing, telling Americans that it’s all over but the crying and it doesn’t matter if we think it’s our country or not, they’ll do what they damn well please.

But it ain’t over. Americans aren’t going to just bend over and take it up the pipeline. There is still plenty we can do and our numbers are still growing.

But, it’s time, today, to make a stand. Let the billionaires and their XL Pipeline cheer leaders know that this is still our country and we don’t want the stinking toxic sludge coming across our country just so the billionaires can refine it in the Gulf Coast and then ship it all out of the country.

This pipeline will actually cause our gas prices to go up because none of the gas that is refined will be sold in America.

America doesn’t want the XL Pipeline and we will be heard.

Oh, those poor misunderstood billionaires and oil executives and transnational corporations. Don’t you just feel sorry for them?

I’m sure you’ve noticed by now how some people always blame the victim. It’s the girl’s fault for getting raped, it’s the dress, it’s the victims fault who live in repressive countries, it’s the poor’s fault for being poor and lazy.

Let’s evaluate that last one.

If lack of ambition was the only cause or even the primary cause for poverty, then only one or maybe a handful of people would have any money because they have more ambition than everyone else.

Well this obviously isn’t the case, now, is it? There are lots of people with ambition who die poor and lots of lazy rich people. One would have to be purposely blind to not see that around them every day.

If you take a moment to think through the stories you’re told, you can see where the logic breaks down. And, once you realize you’ve been fed a crock of baloney, you probably end up with at least these two questions:

Well, then, what is the real cause of poverty?

Why are people so ignorant to not see through the illogical statements, if I can? They must be able to see that what they are saying is wrong. And, if they’re saying things they know are wrong, why are they doing it? What are they getting from this deceit?

I think we all know what the lazy rich are getting by us fighting among ourselves. We’re not fixing the problem with the rich. The rich are the news commentators, they are the news media.

And for the first question, take a quick stroll through this article on the poor to get a good idea on what is making people poor.

I know, I know, I can hear it already by those who refuse to admit to themselves that they were wrong, “but I know a lazy poor person. It must be true.”

Well, do you have any idea how hard it is to live a life in poverty? There is stress every minute of every day wondering if and how you’re going to make ends meet. You’re spending every minute of the day working for poverty wages because you don’t get paid enough to just work 60 hours like the lazy rich might do.

If you’re so poor that you’ve lost your home and your family and don’t even have a car with gas in it to live in anymore, you spend every minute of your life trying to keep from losing the few possession you still have and you’re working to figure out how you’re going to get enough food so you don’t starve, and you’re trying to figure out where you’re going to spend the night without freezing to death.

Do rich people work this hard? Of course not.

So, next time you hear someone say or even imply that the poor are lazy, it might be time to set them straight.

The Republican voters are beginning to wake up and see exactly what party they have been voting for and the majority of these people are repulsed at what has become of the Republican party.

Just today, the Republican candidates were coached on how to act like they cared, how to act like they had empathy, how to pretend that they are anything but soulless sociopaths. But how can you hide your sickness when you refuse to provide long term unemployment insurance for the poor and starving and freezing without demanding that you first get to take food out of the mouths of other starving children or giving more money to the rich? There’s just no hiding the true soul of the Republican party and their voters are finally beginning to see them for what they truly are.

The great majority of Americans believe we need to strengthen our safety net, increase unemployment and other benefits to the poor, increase the minimum wage, and start expecting the billionaires to pay their fair share, but the Republican party is opposed to all the things the majority of America wants. And you know what? The Republican voter is beginning to realize it.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of gullible or uneducated who will never abandon their corrupt party. But the majority of them are leaving.

Jesus said feed the hungry, clothe the naked (house the homeless), heal the sick. The Republican party says let them die. Take away unemployment benefits, take away housing assistance, repeal Obamacare.

Look around you and you cannot help but notice that America is not only getting forced further and further to the right, but the further we go to the conservative side of the scale, the worse things get to the average American.

Still, a solid 30% of Americans continue to vote for those bringing down this right-wing austerity on our heads and wonder why things continue to get worse.

Why are we slipping further to the right no matter how hard we fight back?

Because…

A handful of extremely wealthy Americans and transnational entities are making more money off our misery. The less we make, the more they make. And they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars buying our politicians and Supreme Court justices, and our new sites, the few we have left. Soon they will all sound like Rush and Fox and O-Liely and Sean Whatshisname.

The Full Court Press is on and it’s almost game over. We don’t have time to sit around and wonder what happened, we have to get mobilized today and get this game back on our court. We are almost out of clock.

Congratulations Nevada, you just might have a chance of pulling yourselves out of the quagmire you find yourselves in. You voted against the Austerity presidential candidate.

Rather than dragging America down to your level, you’ve elected to put the country on a different path than yours.

Now, if you can just make those same decisions on your local elections and get the failed policies out of office.

This is not a political issue, this is an economic issue. You didn’t get were you are by following the mistaken policies of just one party.

But, it looks like Nevada is waking up.

We need to stop letting the elites, the leeches, ride free on our backs. It’s time the rich started paying their fair share. Did you know Microsoft is incorporated in Nevada rather than Washington so they don’t have to pay taxes? So who pays for the infrastructure that they use? You and I do, and the people of Washington. Does Microsoft? No.

This, Nevada, is the reason our state is in such sad shape. The rich get a free ride and the expenses fall on the backs of the true small businesses and on the rest of us tax payers.

We give tax breaks to the mines and other multinational corporations and expect the Nevada taxpayer to pick up the tab.

No more!

It’s time we started expecting the billionaires to pay for the 90% of our state’s expenses that they incur. It’s time their taxes paid for the roads their employees travel, and the roads their trucks use to deliver goods and provide them a profit. It’s time they paid for the court systems and all the other infrastructure they are using and expecting us to cover.

Thanks to the Supreme Court and their insane Citizens United ruling, billionaires and international corporations can now spend unlimited amounts of money to drown out your first amendment right of Free Speech.This means that this is the first time in our lifetimes that anonymous donations of hundreds of millions of dollars or even billions of dollars can be spent on blatant lies.

And it’s coming.

In the next month you’ll start seeing a nauseating amount of negative ads, outright lies coming out of your TV and your radio on every billboard and in every advertising platform you can imagine.

Why is this possible? How can billionaires and international corporations defecate on our electoral process? How can they wipe themselves with our first amendment?

You will get sick of the negative ads. And every time you see a negative ad, and it’s brought to you by some corrupt corporation like Americans for Prosperity or Americans for a Better ______, or Concerned Citizens for a Better ___, know that their name is as deceitful as their message.

Once you’ve had enough of these crooks spewing sewage our our democracy, get mad. Donate what money you can to the Democratic candidate that they are slandering. And get mad enough to be sure to get out there and vote against the Republican machine that is trying to give our democracy to billionaires and multinational corporations.

It’s coming, so get ready, and get mad and get rid of those who have brought this crap to America.

One finds countless excuses why conservatives are so different than the rest of America, excuses that range from authoritarian followers, to misplaced morals, to compartmentalized thinking, to downright sociopathy, to just plain ignorance. Many times you will see writers trying to fit all or even most of the symptoms into one shoe box or another. You will also see writers trying to put these in a less than honest light to help buffer some of the raw ugliness of their findings.

I’m going to present another perspective. This isn’t so much separate from all the rest but is rather a unified theory that includes many of the other findings and concepts.

Your Circle of Empathy

Humans have a natural inclination to feel and exhibit empathy. Your degree of empathy and the size of your circle of empathy is primarily dependent on one thing, your feeling of safety. There are other less influential factors, such as mental illness like sociopathy but this essay does not deal with those. But, it has been found that the vast majority of ruthless business owners are clinically psychopathic, finding gratification in stealing candy from babies. This is no exaggeration.

But, alas, that is a whole blog post all in itself.

Kinds of safety affect ones circle of empathy

There are many kinds of safety. Primarily, safety can be defined as freedom from want and fear. Are you afraid for your personal safety in your home and neighborhood? Are you afraid of the Mexicans invading America to steal our jobs? Are you afraid of the mooslems coming for ya? Are you afraid you won’t have enough food to feed the family tonight? Are you afraid you’re losing your home? Are you afraid that lump in your breast or throat is cancer and you don’t have decent insurance? Are you afraid you’ll be shot by a vigilante on your way home some night? Are you afraid Omaba’s commin’ for your guns?

There are countless types of fear and uncertainty that we face every day.

How Fear Reduces Our Empathy

When you have little fear and are adept at dealing with you fear, your capacity for empathy is naturally quite high, your circle of empathy contains the entire universe. You feel for the wildlife losing their habits to human encroachment, you feel for the oceans that are being poisoned and are dying around us. You feel for Mother Earth. You would probably even feel empathy for life on other worlds if they existed.

That is the natural state of human empathy.

Why do you suppose that is? Caring for the earth has allowed our small clans and societies to coexist in the world. If the cave men hadn’t survived by coexisting with the world, you and I would not be here today. Therefore, empathy is in our genes.

Now, let’s take away some of the safety. Let’s consider two small societies, living close together. When the food becomes scarce, the loving neighbors become competitors for the scarce food. They become “the other.”

If your town is hungry, you don’t have time to worry about the health of the rain forest. It’s time to slash and burn so you can feed your family. It doesn’t matter how many plants and animals have to die.

Your circle of empathy has just gotten much smaller. Even your next door neighbors are now looked at like possible competitors. In fact, when food becomes even more scarce, the loving community becomes bitter rivals. Now, it’s each family out for themselves.

Even more scarcity, more fear of hunger, and families start to split apart. Siblings are left to fend for themselves. One parent abandons the family, some times just to go out and die of hunger, leaving the food for the remainders. Sometimes parents will even abandon children when things get bad enough. This is a point where this theory ends. Some will sacrifice for the kids and many will not. The argument is, “They’ll all just die when we’re gone anyway, and we can always have more kids when things get better.”

Still some will stay together and die together and some will not. Seldom will both parents remain. We see this all the time in hunger stricken countries in Africa.

At this gruesome extreme of the safety scale, nothing is safe. The family dog starts to look like possible nutrition to keep the children alive. The size of our circle of empathy at this point includes just ourselves, and maybe our children. That’s a pretty small circle compared to the first circle encompassing all the universe.

“Let Him Die”

How big is the circle of empathy of a person who yells, “let him die” when asked about medical care for a sick but uninsured neighbor? In this example, it wasn’t just a single person, but the entire Republican debaters and audience. Not a single person disagreed, though many were too embarrassed to admit out loud that they agreed.

Cultivating the Culture of Fear

There is no hiding the fact that the Republican party cultivates fear and capitalizes on the irrational voting behavior of their followers. The psychopathic millionaires and billionaires running the Republican party, you know, the ones without any empathy, reduce the empathy of their followers through fear and then add to that fear by reducing the safety of the American voters by destroying the things that make us safe, like industry regulations, water and food safety, drug safety, Social Security, Medicare, sitting idly by while religious fanatics attack America, taking us off to war on illegal wars.

If you don’t control your fear, the Republican party will control you.

It’s interesting to look at the effects that religion has on society. Below, you will be able to visualize the effects of different social trends, including religiosity, health, teen pregnancy, education, and income disparity. This data was compiled from multiple sources, mostly being from the census data.

Each graph shows two social issues on a state-by-state basis. Look to see how many peaks in one line match peaks in the other line. This indicates that both the social indicators are high in that state. Look for the number of valleys that line up as well. All the states are in alphabetic order so you can find your own state by counting the number of tick marks.

Let’s get started…

The above graph shows that states with highly religious people contains the most unhealthy people. Do sick people become more religious or are more religious states under served in the health industry?

Let’s look at teen pregnancies in religious states:

Teen Pregnancies and Religion

The two lines don’t match up nearly as closely as the unhealthy religious graph but the number of peak and valleys that match is well above 50%. It should appear obvious to anyone reading this that the religious communities have a problem with their youth being unprepared for their sexual inclinations. Abstinence education doesn’t stop sex, it stops intelligent decisions regarding sex.

Okay, let’s look at education and religion:

Religion and Lack of Education

This graph tracks almost as closely as the first one. There is an obvious correlation between how uneducated a community is and how religious they are. There are endless psychological studies proving that the typical Republican is way below the average IQ of a Democrat, but this data seems to prove that there is also this same marriage of religiosity and duh.

The real question is, which is cause and which is effect? Does being dumb make you more susceptible to religion or does religion discourage knowledge?

Let’s look at Religiousness and Income Disparity:

Religiosity and Income Disparity

There isn’t much correlation at all between these two. In other words, income disparity isn’t any more prevalent in religious communities than anywhere else.

But, if we compare income disparity and lack of education:

Education and Income Disparity

These two data sets track each other very closely. It is quite obvious that communities with low educations are exploited by the wealthy. It also indicates that in communities where the mega-wealthy control the community, there is little chance of the people getting out from under their thumb. Education is the best solution to income disparity.

The longer the Republican primary goes on, the more disappointed Americans become of the Republican candidates. Do you ever wonder why?

The longer the Democratic primaries go on, the more people become polarized with one candidate or another. Why?

If you have been paying any attention at all to the Republican primary, this year, it is painfully obvious, why. The more the Republican candidates cater to their base, the more out of touch they appear to the rest of America. America gets a good, honest look at that the Republican agenda is: more taxes for the working class, more tax breaks for the rich, profitize and destroy our government starting with our Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and pensions, going all the way through every facet of our country and divvy it for the billionaires who are funding them.

Unfortunately, though, many voters are ignoring the frightening display of destruction that is the Republican primary and they’ll just believe all the millions of dollars in lie-vertisements that the Republican party will be flooding into our living rooms.

This story can’t be repeated often enough and it’s important enough that it should be on everyone’s mind and on everyone’s lips.

Five years ago, the Republican party put a poison pill into legislation that is killing the Post Office. The Post Office is now expected to fund medical benefits for their retires FOR THE NEXT SEVENTY FIVE YEARS, all in the next few years.

Think about that for a minute. The next seventy five years means they’re having to put money aside for people who aren’t even born yet and might work at the Post Office.

The purpose of this poison pill is obviously nothing less than an effort to kill the Post Office, the only office that is protected by the Constitution.

The Republicans want to give the Post Office off to one of their rich Super PAKs and they might as well make sure there are billions of dollars in medical saving accounts to give away while they’re at it.

If you’re a Republican, I’m sure you have some excuse about how your party is so unethical and so against everything America and it’s constitution stand for, but you can only lie to yourself for so long.

The Republican Party is not only poisoning the Post Office, they’re trying to poison the entire country and no body is talking about it. Have you heard about this on your Fox news channel? Nah, didn’t think so.

We have got to overturn this awful poison pill and kick the crooked Republicans out of power for the next few generations until they come clean and start working for the better of the country rather then the best interests of their billionaire donors.

With all the talk from the Republican candidates about how superior their own personal religious strengths are, it should remind all of us what it really means to be a Christian.

Do you consider yourself a Christian? What are your most important Christian principles?

Considering how Jesus taught and how he lived his life, here are some Christian principles many consider important. How do you rate on these Christian principles?

Works of Mercy: Do you support and vote for a political party that is for providing material needs of the weak, sick, and poor? Or do you vote for a party that is against health care for all?

Does your political party seek to take away rights from others, such as gays, or illegal aliens, or Muslims? Or does your political party show mercy for all, regardless of their differences?

Salt and Light: Do you shine like a lamp and show your political party that you believe in “do unto others as you would have done unto you?” Or, do you support a political party that wants tax breaks for the rich while deserting the needs of the poor?

Does your political party want to cut expenses by taking away benefits and services for the poor to help the wealthy? Or does your political party want the wealthy to share in order to feed the hungry, and heal the sick?

Are you sure that your political party shines with the light that you want illuminating you and your family and you community and your country?

If you are a Christian, these are some difficult questions and hopefully will make you stop and think, regardless of your political party.

Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me. [Matthew 25.40]

There is a fix for America’s current financial, political, education, and health industry disasters.

Any addict hoping for recovery must first admit what the problems are. America must wake up to the cause of our current problems and admit that they are problems that needs addressing.

In all the cases mentioned above, there is one primary underlying addiction that is perpetuating the disaster. For those who are willing to take the time to look at our history, it is obvious that we had a handle on these problems for the most part of the past 100 years. We had the world’s best education systems, we had the world’s best medical, we had the world’s leading economy.

But, looking back at the 1920’s and you will see that, like today, this wasn’t true. They were the unregulated “Roaring 20s” but it lead directly into the world’s worst Depression of all time. What have we been doing right since the 1920’s and what are we no longer doing right, today?

The answer is capitalism, or more accurately, unrestrained greed.

We used to have the world’s best education system. But, then we started getting stingy with our education dollars, and today we want to give a big slice of the education dollars to billionaires in the way of privatized schools and vouchers. The most successful countries in the world today, have a tax rate almost double what we have in America and aren’t afraid to spend it on education.

Got that? Double.

Why don’t we have higher taxes? Because greed has taken control of our country. Unrestrained Capitalism has us believing that it’s in our best interest to abandon all the things that made America strong over the past 100 years: unions, education dollars, regulations, taxes.

When you hear the term “free markets” it is code words for taking away what little restraints we still have on greedy capitalists.

America used to have laws that said insurance companies must be non-profit as well as our hospitals. We’ve abandoned those regulations and look where it’s gotten us. The medical industry is working diligently to restrict the number of doctors we have in America. Why? Well, for greed, and nothing more. Fewer doctors means higher profits for doctors.

Now, all you Fox zombies, just hold on. I’m not saying we need to do away with capitalism, I am saying we need to get back to the days when we weren’t afraid to regulate it. Regulations are our friends.

Since the days of Reagan, our politicians are afraid to break up the big monopolies. They even express interest in advancing them, if they’re a Republican, and they’re too afraid to do anything if they’re a Democrat.

Our capitalism is running amock and we have to regain control of it. But, that will be impossible until we come to admit that we have a problem. Like a typical addict, we have to admit we have a problem before we can fix it.

The 99% Movement is succeeding at bringing this to our attention, but the greedy capitalist are doing their best to discredit the movement. We have to all wake up and realize that the greedy corporate news sources are dead set on preventing us from taking back control of our country. It’s time to turn off the broadcast television and time to admit we have a problem. The problem is unrestrained capitalism and therein lies the fix.

There is no denying that Fox and the Republican party is dead set against the 99% Movement and #Occupy. I hear many a Fox viewer repeating the talking point, “The 99% doesn’t represent me.”

I don’t expect the customers of the Conservative propaganda to spend much time thinking, but this comment shows much more than just lack of thinking, but actually shows downright brain washing. If you’re not a billionaire, you’re the 99% and, no matter how much you might hate it, you represent yourself, as do the rest of the 99% of us.

Now just think about this for a minute. Before the 99% woke up, America was discussing billionaire talking points day in and day out. All the news on all the so called Liberal Media were talking the billionaire talking points of austerity and, “Oh my gosh, I think I just wet myself again over the budget.”

Now that the 99% are finding our voice, the so called Liberal Media is now forced to talk about something more than billionaire talking points. We even accidentally hear in the so called Liberal media words like “unfair wealth distribution’, and “wealth redistribution to the top 1%”, and “welfare and tax cuts for the billionaires”.

As much as the Fox viewers might hate the thought, they are waking up from their Fox delusions and realizing that Fox and the Republican party are the mouthpiece for the billionaires. There’s no wonder they hate the 99%. No wonder they hate their viewers, who are waking up. No wonder that they hate having to talk about the unfair distribution of wealth in America.

Thank you #Occupy and the 99%. We are beginning to talk about the things that really matter to America because of you.

This is such an important issue that it has to be addressed immediately.

We are allowing some to get rich by mining our minerals, and drilling our oil. I say “our” because everything in the ground belongs to all humans, all of us. Anything and everything we take from the Earth is limited. Sooner or later everything will run out unless we make rules, right now, today, to prevent the extraction of anything that is not replaced at the expense of those benefiting from the taking.

But, stop. Think about this a minute. Aren’t you and I benefiting from having cars to drive and oil and gas to burn to keep us moving and keep our heaters and air conditioners and air filters working? I’m guessing we will all say, yes, we are all benefiting from exploiting our finite resources.

What happens to our kids and grand kids when we’ve used up all those resources? Haven’t we effectively stolen the resources from future generations?

It’s time we started realizing that this Ponzi scheme will only last so long before it will all come crashing down. What will happen to our economy when all the oil is gone? It will be the biggest economic crash we’ve ever seen and it will last the rest of time.

What happens when we’ve used the last of the rare earth minerals that make our technology run? No new computers, no new pace makers, no new technology. What do you think that will do to our economy?

Sure, there’ll be a whole new industry of little Chinese slave labor hands stripping the guts out of our old technology trying to scrounge up enough to make a new computer. What will that do to our computer industry? What will that do to our entire technology industry? It’ll be a disaster like we’ve never seen before.

Sure, we might not run out of oil today and we might have enough rare earth minerals to last a few more years, but sooner or later it will all be gone. We have to start conserving today. We need to start finding alternatives to our limited resources. We need to stop the greedy from exploiting our commons for money. When it runs out, it will be you and me that suffer. It’ll be our kids and grand kids. The greedy will already have their money.

Now, don’t expect the greedy 1% to willingly stop making money stripping away our commons. It has to be you and me to pass the laws that require that our commons be cared for. The only way to protect our commons from the greedy and from ourselves it to educate everyone of the train wreck right around the corner and to pass laws that protect our commons, right now, today.

We’ve discussed the need to protect the commons in prior posts. Still, there are many people who don’t grasp the importance of protecting our commons. I’ll illustrate an important aspect of protecting the commons by looking at the crime of exploiting our resources for greed and profit.

In our example we’ll use the idea of exploiting oil even though this applies to all of our resources.

Let’s take the position that I am an oil tycoon and am spending millions of dollars each month to ensure that people continue to use my oil and continue to make billions of dollars in profit for me. Let’s say that I’m even pathological enough to discourage people from believing the catastrophic truth about the negative effects of using my products.

In 40 years I pass my empire on to my children and they pass it along to their children and on and on until it’s the year 2500 and every drop of oil is gone.

Along comes 2501 and the world is faced with a disaster that only oil can resolve.

What I have done as well as my children and grand children is steal the resources from our future children. I’ve taken something from the earth that belongs to every one of us and exploited it to make me stinkingly rich, here, now, today. I have taken the resources away from any future generation that may actually have a use for them that could help everyone.

We all need to start to expect that there should be restrictions on exploiting our non-renewable resources for greed and profit, expect that we would all find it important to protect our resources, especially the ones we can’t get back once they’re squandered.

Even renewable resources need to be protected. Our water supplies are renewable but no one should be allowed to make money by selling something that we all need to survive on this planet. This foolishness will only lead to a shortage of water while some have it all. It always comes to pass that those things that are in the most demand are owned, hoarded, exploited, and controlled by the wealthy.

Resources such as food or lumber are renewable but are also of limited quantity. There is only so much lumber we can grow and so much food. Both of these must come from the earth which we are all responsible for. If we leave it up to the greedy to strip the land of all ability to grow food and lumber we will be allowing them to get rich while all the rest of us will have to deal with the barren, toxic wasteland the greedy will leave behind.

Sooner or later we will all begin to realize that we are all responsible for this earth we share. And the only way to be responsible for it and to protect it is to have reasonable limitations on how it can be exploited for profit.

A stick of wood has little or no inherent value. Have someone carve it into an ax handle and you have created value. The person with the ax handle has value, as does the business he works for, as does the neighborhood and town he is in as well as the country. For every ax handle made, value is added to the country.

When America abandons it’s manufacturers, it is abandoning the golden goose. No more value is added to the country.

Sure, we now have a “service” driven economy, but it ads nothing of value. Do you want fies with that? Is that adding any value? I’ll mow your lawn, you fix my car. Is any value added? Of course not. In fact, if all you have is service, eventually all the value of the country will be depleted. Every time the money has to change hands, someone takes some out to live on, some of it goes to pay for the roads and street lights.

Obama is planning to put another trillion dollars into a stimulus package, but it will all go away just like it did ten years ago when we no longer make anything anymore.

We’ve lost over 40,000 factories in the past 10 years. That’s a whole lot of value that is gone. What little manufacturing we have left is not enough to offset the value lost in the “service industry”. The stimulus will all go away unless our representatives start to realize where it’s going.

Every time I turn around I hear another Republican politician explaining how the rich, who are sitting on three trillion dollars are the job creators and we need to give them more money.

Who are the job creators?

If it was the rich, we’d be in fat city right now because the so called job creators would have nothing but money to magically make more jobs.

If the businesses and the wealthy were the job creators, there would never have been the great Republican depression of the 20s. They had all the money and America, the real America, still starved to death.

Who Are the Job Creators

The businesses will only hire if there are customers needing something to buy. The best way to kill an economy is to stop people from buying. If people have money to spend, businesses will hire. The customers are the job creators.

The Customers are the Job Creators

Got that? The customers.

If a business is doing well, it can stream line and increase their profits. When the streamline, they lay off people. Who is the job creator? The business is the job killer. The bigger the business, the more streamlined it is and the bigger job killers they are.

Bringing in more customers will mean they have to hire more people, even if they’ve streamlined the business. The customers are the job creators.

When a billionaire buys a company and moves it over to China to cut costs, the billionaire is the job killer. It’s not the customers, it’s not the regulations, it’s not the taxes, it’s the greedy billionaires who are the job killers.

You got it. The customer. Give the people a union and a reliable income and our economy will flourish. If we give more money to the so called Job Creators that the Republicans tell us about, we will lose more and more jobs.